Sharla Sava is a writer and university educator. She has lectured, curated exhibitions, and published a variety of articles about art after modernism, discussing the work of Robert Filliou, Antonia Hirsch, Ray Johnson, N.E. Thing Co., and Jeff Wall, among others. She completed her PhD at SFU in 2006 and is currently Assistant Professor at York University.

PaintinggnitniaP features an installation of new work by Vancouver artist Charles Rea, exploring the social and psychological implications of different institutional interiors. The mirroring and optical aspects in his paintings recall binary systems of vision and perception and the psychological uses of Rorschach images (mirrored ink blots). The institutional interiors he represents are perspectival and suggest spaces of science, knowledge and capitalism. These spaces include, amongst others, hospitals, libraries, schools and banks; spaces traditionally built, controlled and occupied by men. Although, the architectural spaces Rea represents are absent of people, they allude to the presence of a male body.

PaintinggnitniaP is the last in a series of three exhibitions dealing with architectural space and the body. The work in these solo exhibitions explore domestic and institutional space, revealing aspects of social organization and control found within these genedered systems. A publication discussing the work in this series, with essays by Lucy Hogg and Sharla Sava, will be released on the opening night of this exhibition.

Features three essays examining the relationship of the body to domestic and institutional space in the solo exhibitions of Charles Rea, Thecla Schiphorst and Johannes Zits. The catalogue includes full colour images of each installation as well as the artists’ working notes and sketches prior to making the work.